


Center Stage

by haganenoheichou



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, Making Out With Strangers, Older!Keith, TA!Shiro, actor!keith, gratuitous theater references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-19 05:54:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13117425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haganenoheichou/pseuds/haganenoheichou
Summary: Keith is a stage actor, and Shiro decides to come seeking money for stage school. Keith is impressed by Shiro's physique and his kind puppy dog eyes, so he agrees. For a price.





	Center Stage

**Author's Note:**

> My giftee Marcella requested stage actor Keith and this is what happened... I hope you like it! Happy Holidays!

Shiro honestly hadn’t expected this. When he had set out to go to drama school, he hadn’t expected to become a devout follower of Keith Kogane, stage actor, drama queen, and the best goddamn thing to ever happen to this city’s art scene. He hadn’t expected to eagerly await every single production from _Red Lion Theater_ , knowing that Kogane would be there, center stage, and absolutely perfect in any role he took on.

And Shiro didn’t just see every single production once. Oh no. He went at least several times a month because he was a fanboy and he admired Kogane’s… acting.

His ass was a nice addendum.

So, he had no idea how he had ended up here.

Here being, doing push-ups in the middle of the _Red Lion_ stage, with Keith Kogane perched on a chair next to him, the actor’s feet effortlessly lying on his back as he struggled to keep his composure.

“Louder!” Kogane demanded, clearly amused. “Being a stage actor is all about _louder_!”

“Seventy-eight,” Shiro panted, tasting his own sweat on his tongue. “Seventy-nine… Eighty…”

So, how had Takashi Shirogane, known to everyone but his mother as Shiro, ended up in a situation like this? Well.

_***Cue jingly belly music to indicate flashback.***_

“Dude, this is bullshit,” Lance growled, plopping down into the seat across from Shiro and Pidge. The two of them had already spent a fair amount of time at their favorite Starbucks, complaining about the unfairness of the world; but Lance’s arrival indicated that a new wave of indignation had the green light to rise.

“I know,” Shiro said tiredly, reaching out to sip on his coffee and promptly burning his tongue on it. He cursed under his breath, to which Pidge snickered.

“Shut up, or I’ll tell your dad you skipped Physics 400.”

Pidge yawned exaggeratedly. “Your threats are getting old, Shiro. And I could teach that fucking–,”

“–language–,”

“–class. It’s not like there’s nothing there I don’t know.”

“You’re a show-off,” Lance said.

Pidge narrowed their eyes at him. “And what does that make you?”

“A paladin of modesty,” Lance said.

“It’s ‘paragon,’ dimwit.”

“Bite me!”

“Get over here and I will!”

Shiro tuned out their squabbling and instead focused his gaze on the letter he had received from the finance office at the university. They hadn’t just sent them an email to reject their request; no, they had actually sacrificed a damn tree to tell them that they weren’t good enough for the university’s money.

Apparently, “there is very little demand for acting workshops and other such activities, therefore…”

Therefore, they weren't getting any money for their university theater. Or their acting workshops. Or the stage school Shiro had dreamt of launching from then on. Which was kind of logical, now that he thought about it. He wasn't even a real actor. His most prominent role had been Lady Macbeth in high school because he had been the only one to know all the lines when the actual Lady Macbeth had inconveniently taken ill with crabs.

He had gone to a shit high school. 

And then he had done some stuff in college, but never enough to be good for actual, real-life acting – he had taken all the classes, some as audits, just because he wanted to be close to that world. Still, Mrs. Shirogane, his mother, and a very demanding woman who wanted to keep her eyes on the prize when it came to the money she paid for her son's tuition had encouraged him to maybe major in something more _worthwhile_ instead.

Thus, he had gotten his Bachelor’s in International Business and Marketing.

Shiro _loathed_ International Business and Marketing. 

For some reason, he was now working on his MBA, and that meant also working for the university as a TA when the university wanted not to pay money; which was always.

So, it was only logical that they had rejected this request and told him to look for outside sources of money. Because that shit grew on trees.

His fellow hopeful actors – undergraduate child genius Pidge and undergraduate charming slob Lance – were definitely not going to contribute in any way but with talent since their parents were not in love with their extracurricular activities. And their fourth, undergraduate hospitality major and Cordon Bleu dreamer Hunk, was incredibly broke all the time because he spent money on actual ingredients whose names Shiro had trouble pronouncing even after his warmups.

"What did you expect?" Lance sighed when he and Pidge finally stopped hissing at each other, and he saw the letter in Shiro's hand. "They charge ten cents for printing. Ten cents! One-sided!"

“It’s a rip-off,” Pidge agreed. “They were never going to give us money for something like this.”

“You know, anyone can say _I told you so_ ,” Shiro said resentfully, giving them his best you-made-Dad-cry look. Pidge seemed to deflate at that – it always worked.

“I guess I’ll just have to look for the money elsewhere,” he murmured, glancing over at his ticket to _Waiting for Godot: A Postmodern Interpretation._ He had no idea how this play could be even more postmodern, but he was willing to give it a try because that meant over an hour and a half of Keith Kogane’s ass on stage.

And his incredible acting skills. That too.

“You know what, maybe I’ll just ask him,” he said. Lance and Pidge looked at him as if he had just grown two heads and was in the process of sprouting a third.

“Him?” Pidge asked.

“Him.” Shiro pressed a finger into the small picture of Kogane on the booklet that came with the ticket. “Keith Kogane.”

“Your fictional boyfriend?” Pidge snorted.

Shiro flushed. “Not my boyfriend.”

“Fine, your jerkoff material then,” Lance added. Great, Shiro groaned inwardly. For once, the two weren’t fighting, but now he was the one getting ganged up on.

“I don’t–,”

“Yeah, sure,” Lance said, smirking at him with. “And I’m the Queen of England.”

“Nah, you’re just a queen,” Pidge said, prompting Lance to strike a pose.

“Your Majesty,” Shiro tossed back with a mock bow. He had no idea how he had gotten himself stuck in this weird circle of friends.

He blamed theater.

“So, what’s your plan? Cream your pants to Kogane in _Waiting for Gadot_ –,”

“It’s _Godot_. With an _O_. A fictional character who never appears. Not Gal Gadot, the dreamy Wonder Woman lady,” Pidge interjected, rolling their eyes at Lance’s ignorance.

Lance scoffed. “Whatever. So, cream your pants to not-Gal-Gadot, and then just waltz into his dressing room and ask for money?”

Shiro bit his lip, wondering whether he was really going to do something so stupidly out of character. He, the composed Takashi Shirogane, straight-A grade student and the Business Department’s favorite bitch, was finally going to do something adventurous.

Like, meet the man who wandered through his dreams. Even the naughtiest ones. Especially the naughtiest ones.

“You know what?” He said, springing up and grabbing his bag and his ticket, waving it in the air animatedly. “I’ll do just that.”

Exit stage left. His friends stared after his retreating back.

“For the record,” Lance said quietly, “I’d wait for Gal Gadot forever.”

“Word,” said Pidge.

* * *

So, in a nutshell, this was why he was doing pushups under Keith Kogane’s watchful eyes – and his socked feet. Because Keith Kogane had greeted him with a cocky smirk and a scoff as he’d caught him on the way out of his dressing room, having snuck in by pretending to be a security person.

And he had asked Keith Kogane for money to start his _little theater club_ (Kogane’s words, not his). And Kogane had agreed immediately.

For the pleasure of watching Shiro do two-hundred pushups under his feet.

Shirtless.

“You know, you’ve got a pretty nice body,” Kogane commented, his eyes burning a hole in the back of Shiro’s head. Shiro was pretty sure that at this point his blush had already spread to his back.

“Uh… thanks?” He panted. He felt Kogane shift and snuck a look over his shoulder. Holy shit, he was leaning over. He was so close. He still had some makeup on the edges of his face where it met his shiny black hair.

He had great hair.

“It’s kind of weird that you’re only just starting your acting career.”

“I’ve… acted… before…”

“Yeah, high school and college don’t count, sweetheart,” Kogane said, reaching for a cigarette and lighting up. Weren’t there smoke alarms in this place? “What are you majoring in again?”

“Business and Marketing,” Shiro replied with a grunt.

“Business and Marketing,” Kogane repeated mockingly. “Jesus, kid, you’re as boring as they come. Let me guess, overbearing parents?” 

Shiro nodded, chancing a glance at Kogane who caught it.

 “Yeah, didn’t have any of that. I was adopted. My parents were hippies from San Francisco. They didn’t give a fuck if I acted or stripped, long as I was happy.”

 _I wish you stripped,_ Shiro thought to himself, before catching that thought and stuffing it very far away into the darkest corners of his mind.

“Shame you’re only just getting in here,” Kogane murmured. “You have a pretty face too.”

“Thanks,” Shiro whispered, even as his mind went, _did he just compliment me oh my god Keith Kogane complimented me he likes my face he likes my body I think I’ve died and gone to heaven and I’m so happy._

“So what’s your favorite?”

“Hm?” Shiro glanced back up at Kogane.

“Your favorite play I’ve done,” Kogane said.

Shiro wanted to open his mouth and protest, to say that he never had–

“Yeah, I’ve seen you around. I don’t forget a man like you.”

Shiro had to fight against his embarrassment. “Uh… the one you did today was great. I love _Godot_.”

“It’s a modern classic,” Kogane said with a content sigh. “But what’s your favorite?”

Shiro paused, wondering if there was a way to say this and not sound creepy. “Would it be weird… If I said… I like all of them?”

“All of them?” There was laughter in Kogane’s voice.

“Y-yeah,” Shiro breathed. “It’s… you’re so versatile on stage.”

“That’s not the only place where I’m versatile.”

Shiro coughed, having inhaled a chunk of his own saliva. Shit, he had walked right into that one.

_Keith Kogane just flirted with me. At me. Violently._

After the last push-up was done, Shiro sat on the stage, trying very hard not to stare as Kogane procured a business card, handing it over to him carefully. "Here," he said. "My private number's on the back. Call me tomorrow, and I'll write you a check. If you can prove to me, over dinner, that this investment is worthwhile.”

“T-thanks,” Shiro said, taking the card. Then the second part of Kogane’s sentence hit him. Dinner? “Mister Kogane–,”

The man looked at him almost exasperatedly. “Takashi, was it?”

“Shiro,” he said quickly. “Only my mom calls me Takashi.”

“Shiro, then,” said Kogane, his mouth turned up at the edges. “It’s Keith.”

“Keith,” Shiro breathed, not even noticing how close the man had gotten to him before he found himself breathing in his air. A moment passed between them, and then Keith stepped a fraction closer.

“Tell me you don’t want this and I won’t do it,” he murmured, his eyes fixed on Shiro’s mouth.

"I…" Shiro was at a loss for words. He had whiplash, and he was so, so in lust with Keith Kogane, and Keith Kogane was right there and–

“I want this,” he breathed, hoping he hadn’t broken the moment.

“Come get it,” Keith whispered, teasingly swaying back. Shiro followed him; his hand found purchase in the man’s shirt and fuck, he just realized that he still wasn’t wearing his and–

“Are you going to kiss me or write me a poem?” Keith asked amusedly.

"Poem," Shiro's stupid mouth blurted out, and the two of them just stared at each other before easy laughs paved the way for a kiss. A very innocent, barely-there kiss that Shiro knew he was going to remember forever.

Keith pulled back, but not before landing another peck on the corner of Shiro’s mouth.

“Tomorrow, you call me. If you still want this. And the money.”

“O-okay,” Shiro said, nodding numbly as the actor turned and made for the dressing rooms.

“Oh, and I’d like to meet those friends of yours,” Kogane called over his shoulders. “Make sure they come to the next play. We’re doing _Equus_ , and my bits look much better than Daniel Radcliffe's."

Shiro was pretty sure that the sound he made back there could not possibly be classified as human. 


End file.
